


Into the Light

by SkystormChaosCore



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aborted Undertale Genocide Run, Afterlife, Chara is the good guy but feels guilty anyway, Death, Everyone Dies Anyway, F/M, Female Chara, Female Frisk, Frisk does too, Good Chara, Judgement Hall, Sad, Songfic, Undertale Genocide Route, dying, everyone is sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 03:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkystormChaosCore/pseuds/SkystormChaosCore
Summary: Can anybody tell me why we're lying here on the floor and neither of us can barely breathe at all?





	Into the Light

Frisk stared at the ceiling. Her eyes traced every detail, committing them to memory. It kept her mind occupied, away from the pain.

It was useless to feel the pain, even more so to do anything about it. She knew she was dead. It was stupid, but she was dead. She had faced down killer robots, undying fish warriors, mountain kings, and a god. And she had fallen on her own fucking knife.

Well, okay, it was more like the awful thing inside of her had turned her knife against him, and she had tried to stab herself instead. And she had succeeded, sort of. The knife was firmly lodged in her abdomen. But that hadn't happened until after she had struck him across the chest, completely obliterating his one HP. Now he was lying next to her, blood leaking from his chest to mix with her own on the floor as they both waited to die.

She didn't want to look at him. She knew he hated her. Maybe he knew about the resets, maybe he didn't. Maybe he knew they had been friends, maybe he knew they had been more. Maybe he didn't. It didn't matter. She had still killed his brother. He had still killed her. Again and again and again... all without a hint of remorse.

And all the while, he was all she could think of. When he turned her soul blue and threw her against a column like a ragdoll, she remembered a dark alleyway. Being pulled around a corner and away from prying eyes. Body shoving her against a wall. Hungry mouth swallowing hers, breathing her in like she was oxygen after a long dive underwater.

When he threw her to the floor, she remembered a bedroom. A pile of clothes. Too lazy to pick them up. Too lazy to bother with the bed. Pulling her to the floor. Pinning her underneath him. Hands. Eyes. Staring down at her with that same self-satisfied smirk that she knew just how to wipe off his face.

She only caught a glimpse of the eye twice, but she had seen it so many times before. The cyan and yellow flashes were committed to memory. She remembered it calmer, less volatile but just as intense. Colors, not flashing like an angry stobe, but flickering like a fire. Dancing with each other in that beautiful orb. Watching the determination swirl in her blood red eyes, just as hypnotized by her as she was by him.

She could feel him, right now. She could hear his breathing, ragged and labored. She could feel his magic, shuttering and fading. In her mind, she pictured a dark room and a warm bed. The presence beside her was strong and steady, comforting and familiar, holding her like she was the most precious thing in the world and he was terrified she would slip away from him.

She looked. She couldn't help it. She didn't want to, she wanted to remember him beside her in the grass, gazing up at the stars in wonder, gazing at her in love. But she couldn't help it. She had to look. She had to see him one last time.

Her eyes connected with his, faded white pinpricks in tired black spaces. She realized he had been looking at her. She wondered for how long. And why.

Their eyes searched each other for what felt like an eternity. They found no hatred or malice. They both knew they were going to die. There was no point to hating each other.

Sans slid the hand closest to her up to where her head lay against the tile. There was a slight tremor in his fingers as he brushed aside her bangs. "We know each other," he said in a low murmur, the loudest he could be with his breath so short.

Frisk closed her eyes and leaned her head into his touch. "Yes," she murmured, her voice raspy. Her own breathing was becoming labored.

"How long?" he asked. "Until this resets and we're back to fighting?"

"It won't." Frisk didn't look him in the eyes. "I don't have the determination to continue. This is the end."

Sans was silent for a moment. Then he let out a low, labored chuckle. "Finally got you to give up, huh?"

Frisk's gaze shifted to the vast stained-glass windows. There was so much she wanted to tell him: how she had been fighting her own determination from the beginning, how Chara had fought with her. How their combined determination seemed to have a mind and will of its own, taking control of Chara, forcing her to take control of Frisk. How that ceaseless determination had combined with morbid curiosity to become the awful thing inside of her, inside of them, forcing them down this doomed path. She hadn't wanted it, but it had come from her. She had fought it with every fiber of her being, but it was all her fault. She wanted to tell him everything the awful thing had forced her to do, every FIGHT, every ACT, every ITEM, every MERCY. She wanted to tell him how much she had missed him, how the happiest moments in her life had been the moments she spent with him. How in a way, he had been the one to force her to give up, when her resistance to the thing's control had caused her to trip, causing her to stab herself like she had wanted, how she had felt her determination shatter at her act of defiance, taking the awful thing with it. But it was all too much; she didn't have enough time to say it. And she wasn't sure he would understand.

Her eyes found his again. Saying she was sorry was futile. Sorry didn't encompass her guilt. Sorry didn't make up for what she had done.

She had beaten the awful thing, but at the wrong place and the wrong time. It had cost her her determination, and everyone their happy ending.

"So this is really it, huh?" asked Sans, his eyes straying up to the ceiling. "This is the end."

"This is the end," she echoed.

Sans pulled his hand away from her face and down, like he was reaching for her limp hand. She watched him. He gave a wry smile. "Don't you know how to say goodbye to an old friend?" he asked. "Roll over and shake my hand."

Frisk didn't roll over. A small smile crept over her features. "We're not friends," she said, and she reached with her closer hand and took his outstretched one, interlacing their fingers. She heard Sans suck in a breath. She wondered if it felt familiar at all to him. She didn't care. She just wanted to be with him for the end.

There was so much she wanted to tell him, but she could barely breathe, let alone speak, so she tried to tell him with her eyes.

They weren't friends. If she was honest with herself, they never had been, never could have been. They were always going to end up as lovers or enemies. In the end, maybe, they were a bit of both. But there was no middle ground, no friendship that existed between them. The connection between them was too deep, too intense.

Sans seemed to understand, at least a little. His fingers curled around hers. He rolled over onto his side. The hand not holding hers reached up to brush her face, to comb through her hair, then down to her abdomen, where his hand wrapped around the handle of the knife. Frisk closed her eyes and didn't move until he pulled out the knife with a harsh yank and she flinched, hand squeezing Sans's in a death-grip as fresh pain blossomed from her stomach. But she didn't resist. She didn't complain. What was the point? She had been going to die anyway. Now it would just happen faster.

Sans tossed away the knife. The metal clattered against the tile, but Sans paid it no mind, staring intently at her for a moment before collapsing back onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling, waiting. As she felt hot and sticky liquid leave her body, soaking into her shirt and quickly cooling, Frisk wondered why he had done that. Now she was bleeding out, dying faster, but what was the point? She saw his form begin to waver, feeling his hand desolidifying in hers, and she understood. He wanted them to die together. Whether it was because he loved her or refused to be outlived by his brother's killer, she didn't know. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Frisk's eyes left Sans and turned toward the ceiling. She squeezed Sans's hand. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she thought she felt him squeeze back. Frisk closed her eyes. And somehow, she knew Sans was doing the same. She focused her mind away from the pain, onto her own breathing as it became harder and harder. She focused away from the feeling of Sans's hand dissolving in hers and onto the feeling of his presence beside her.

Together, they waited for the end.

* * *

Chara watched Frisk go down with tears in her eyes. Tears of grief, anger, frustration, and despair streamed down her face as she felt her determination shatter along with Frisk's, the two so entangled they could never be separated, fists closed and shaking and she realized there was nothing she could do. Frisk was going to die and wouldn't come back. This timeline would be the one to stay, the one to go on. And she was helpless to do anything about it.

She had always known, she supposed, that they would never be lucky enough to defeat their determination after a True Pacifist run, that it would take something like this to make Frisk desperate enough to put an end to it all.

Chara bowed her head, closed her eyes, and took deep breaths in and out, trying to calm herself down. The tears and shaking stopped, leaving a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

When Chara opened her eyes again, she saw Sans looking at Frisk, with something behind his eyes that she couldn't read. Nevertheless, she got the feeling she should leave them alone, and so she turned and proceeded forward, from the hall to the throne room.

There was her father, watering his flowers, blissfully unaware of everything that had happened. And there was Asriel, or rather Flowey, crouching among the other golden flowers, waiting for Frisk to come and give him his opportunity to prove himself. It might be a long time before he got over his fear enough to realize she was never coming.

These two were the only ones left in the Underground now. They would be alone, totally and utterly alone, for the rest of their lives. However long those were. She didn't expect her father to last very long after finding out that there was no one else left. He just wasn't the kind of person to go on without anyone but himself to go on for. Then, there would just be Flowey- Asriel- alone until loneliness and boredom won out over his fear of death.

Chara's heart ached. They didn't deserve this. No one did. But there was nothing she could do about it. She was nothing but a spirit, preserved by her determination, awakened by Frisk's. She didn't have a body, and Frisk's was bleeding out on the floor of Judgement Hall. They couldn't even see her. They couldn't hear her. She couldn't even say goodbye.

Chara quashed down the fresh wave of tears that threatened to well up in her eyes. Tears wouldn't help her family. Tears wouldn't save her partner. Tears wouldn't erase this timeline, this horrible, horrible mistake.

Frisk wasn't dead yet, Chara could feel it, but she had nowhere else to go, so she decided to go on. She closed her eyes and felt her spirit fade out of the living world.

When Chara opened her eyes again, she was ankle-deep in crystal-clear water. Around her, she saw white space, directly ahead of her, a pair of golden gates. What was beyond them, she couldn't see. The shallow water formed a plane in the white space, dotted here and there with flowers and the occasional willow tree. Under one of those trees, sitting on a bench, Chara saw Toriel. For a moment, Chara wondered why her mother was still here. Why hadn't she gone onward? As far as she was concerned, Asriel and Chara were there, and so were the six human children who had fallen after her. What was she waiting for? Then it hit her. Asgore. Toriel was waiting for her husband. He was the only one she could be waiting for.

Chara briefly considered going to her mother, then decided against it. She wasn't who Toriel was waiting for. She was expecting to see her on the other side of the gate. Her mother would come to her when she was ready, not before.

Chara wondered if she should go through now, but knew she couldn't. Not without her partner. Not without her sister. Not without Frisk. As she was looking around at benches for a place to sit, she spotted one that was occupied by a tall skeleton wearing a bright red-orange scarf. Papyrus.

Chara approached him, water swishing around her feet. Papyrus looked up when he heard her. "Oh... hello."

"Greetings," she replied. A sad smile played across her features. "Sorry, were you expecting someone else?"

"Oh, no, don't apologize. I just... I'm just waiting for my brother."

Chara nodded to herself. She wouldn't have expected him to be waiting for anyone else. She smiled at him. "You're a good brother," she said. "I'm waiting for someone too."

"I see." A few moments passed in silence. Then, Papyrus shifted on the bench, moving to the left. "Would like to sit with me? We could wait together."

Chara smiled. The gesture was so simple, but so infinitely sweet. "Yes, I would like that. Thank you."

Chara down where Papyrus had made room for her.

"What's your name?" asked the skeleton.

"Chara."

"Very nice to meet you, Chara. I'm Papyrus."

"Nice to meet you too, Papyrus."

It was nice to meet him, face to face. Chara had never been able to do anything but watch through Frisk's eyes, but she had always had a soft spot for the younger skeleton brother. Getting to talk to him, not as Frisk but as herself, was nice.

"Chara," said Papyrus, breaking the silence, "If you don't mind me asking, who are you waiting for?"

"My sister, Frisk."

"Frisk?"

Chara looked at her feet. "You know... the human."

"Oh..." Papyrus also looked down. His expression was mixed, hard to read.

"Papyrus..." Chara had to search for words to say. She wasn't sure if the ones she found were the right ones, but she didn't have anything else. "Listen, I know Frisk better than anyone. What happened... what she did... it wasn't her fault. It wasn't her. It was... something else. I'm not even sure what it was, but... it took control and forced her to do all those awful things. She never wanted to hurt you. She never wanted to hurt anyone."

"I know," said Papyrus, quietly. Chara looked up at him in surprise. "I saw it in her eyes, when..." he absentmindedly ran a hand over his neck, and Chara swallowed her guilt. "I saw that she didn't want to hurt me. I knew that she was really a good person."

Chara felt tears threaten to pool in her eyes again. She smiled. "Papyrus... thank you. Thank you for believing in her. In us."

"Us?" Papyrus looked at her in confusion.

Chara's voice caught in her throat, eventually coming up as a sob. Without warning, her shoulders began shaking and tears began pouring from her eyes, letting out all the guilt and grief she had been bottling up, trying to stay strong for her partner.

"I'm sorry..." she said through the tears, voice cracking, as broken as she felt. "This is all my fault. I'm so, so sorry."

Papyrus only hesitated for a moment, taking in her face and her words before, without questions, without so much as a word, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Chara's face landed on his chest and another sob was ripped from her. Papyrus didn't even know her, and yet he was offering her comfort. Not questioning, just sensing her pain and providing a shoulder for her to cry on. The all-too-familiar feeling of self-loathing washed over Chara. She didn't deserve his kindness.

She hadn't asked to become connected to Frisk, for her determination to become her partner's and vice versa. After watching her best friend turn to dust and everything go black, the next thing she remembered was waking up in darkness, lost and confused, wondering why she was still here, why fate wouldn't just let her die and be done with all her misery.

It was Frisk who had shown her why, Frisk who had carried her spirit through the Underground, meeting monsters familiar, unfamiliar, and painfully familiar to Chara. She hadn't gotten it right the first time, but her determination had allowed her to go back and fix what she had broken, and eventually, what Chara had broken as well.

It didn't end the first time monsters made it to the surface. Frisk went back, not because she didn't want the future on the surface, but because she felt like there was more she could do, to make things better for the monsters. Not much changed, it turned out, but Frisk still kept going back, she and Chara searching tirelessly for the means to the end they wanted more than the life they had been promised on the surface, the means to save Asriel.

Yet despite their determination, despite the multiple True Pacifist runs, it never worked. Asriel was always consigned to his fate. And along those runs, something happened.

Frisk fell in love.

Chara knew before Frisk did, that she liked the skeleton, and watched as "like" went to "love", watched as Frisk realized her feelings. And as she did, it dawned on her that their quest was hopeless. They couldn't save Asriel from his fate. They couldn't have the perfect ending. It was impossible. And that made Chara sad for her brother, but happy for her sister. She knew Frisk would be happier when she could live her life instead of repeating the same cycle over and over again. As it was, Frisk was beginning to delay longer and longer in resetting, just to see what one more day would bring. And when she waited long enough for Sans to tell her he loved her, Chara knew it was time. They both had to let Asriel go.

So when Frisk came to Mt. Ebott, to her, crying because she didn't want to reset, Chara reminded her that she didn't have to. The two sat for a long time, talking, and eventually, Frisk's love for all of the monsters, for her life on the surface, for Sans, outweighed the guilt she felt over not saving Asriel. Frisk had walked away from the mountain for what they both thought was the last time, and Chara had watched her go, a smile on her face and tears streaming down her cheeks. Chara stayed at Mt. Ebott, with Asriel, like she always did. She knew it wasn't just Asriel who could hold her family back from their happy ending. The past had to stay in the past to ensure the future, and she had to stay with it.

Staying in the mountain had consequences, one of those being that, as Chara was now the most determined soul in the Underground, she gained the SAVE. Flowey never failed to come to talk to her about it, asking her to let everyone have their happy ending. This time, she heeded him. Or at least, she tried to.

Months had passed since Chara and Frisk had decided to let the timeline continue, and that was when Chara had begun to feel it. The "awful thing" as Frisk called it. Her determination and Chara's tangled together, darkened by malicious intent. Chara wasn't sure where it came from, the sudden urge to reset. She had felt it before, guiding Frisk through the Underground. Sometimes, when Frisk wasn't sure how to respond to something, she would defer to Chara, and sometimes, Chara got the urge to respond in ways she wouldn't normally. She knew that when her and Frisk's determination, each powerful on its own, came together, it had created something powerful that sometimes seemed like it had a mind of its own.

Chara had ignored it, figuring that the urge would go away, and everyone would go on with their lives. Over time, however, the urges got stronger. It was like resetting was an addiction, and Chara was going into withdrawal. She started to feel shitty. She lashed out at Flowey when he asked what was wrong. He was trying, he was trying so hard to be the Asriel she remembered. And he was making progress too, to the point where she could call him Asriel and he didn't so much as flinch. She felt awful for it afterwards. She didn't know what had possessed her.

Chara tried to stay determined in the face of the urges, but it seemed the more determined she was, the stronger and more frequent the urges became. Then, one day, Chara awoke and wasn't quite herself. Without any conscious thought from her, her soul slipped to the reset button and pressed it.

Things had gone downhill rapidly from there. Chara lost control of her actions, and her voice soon after. Frisk had awoken confused and angry, but she felt Chara's distress and the anger faded, to be replaced by distress of her own when the awful thing reached through Chara and took control of her too.

Chara had never hated herself so much in her life, and that was saying quite a bit. She watched as friends and family turned to dust in front of her, all because she hadn't been strong enough to stop her determination. Frisk was stronger than her, just like she had always been stronger than her, but she hadn't been stronger soon enough, and now this timeline was permanent, all because of Chara's weakness.

It wasn't often that Chara allowed people to see her cry. She hated when it happened. She hated feeling weak. She hated bothering other people with her problems. But when she stopped crying, she realized she had vocally unloaded all this and more to Papyrus and he had listened the whole time, the strength she felt in his arms as he listened never failing once.

Chara had wrapped her arms around him as well and cried into his chest until she had no tears left because she hadn't known how badly she needed this until someone offered it. When Chara gained the courage to look up, she saw understanding and caring in Papyrus's eyes that she had never dared to expect. She had just confessed to him that she had caused all of this, his own death, the soon-to-be death of his brother, and he was still holding her, still looking at her like she was a broken thing that needed to be fixed and that he wanted to fix. She didn't know what to say.

Eventually, Chara decided against saying anything and just let herself be held. Eventually, Papyrus too was oddly silent, seeming to understand that words were unnecessary, and just held her.

And they stayed like that, waiting for Sans and Frisk to arrive.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Into the Light by In This Moment and the many images I've seen of Frisk and Sans dying together in Judgement Hall.
> 
> Originally posted on deviantArt.
> 
> Fun Fact: This idea originally started as just Sans and Frisk, but then I had the idea of Chara and Papyrus meeting in the beyond and waiting for them together, and you know I can't resist some Papyrus x Chara, especially of the bittersweet variety, so of course I had to include it.
> 
> Undertale and its characters belong to Toby Fox.  
> Song does not belong to me.
> 
> Enjoy!


End file.
